<p>Is it true that the majority of classes are graded on the bell curve format?</p>
<p>How exactly does this work ( all i know is that its not that good, according to my Ap art history teacher)</p>
<p>I think a curve is pretty fair.</p>
<p>Everyone's points are added up and the mean and the standard deviation are calculated.</p>
<p>The mean can be assigned a letter grade, anywhere between a C+ to a B+. ( I haven't heard of a class curving any lower or higher)</p>
<p>each standard deviation above or below the mean roughly represents a letter grade.</p>
<p>The first standard deviation includes 33% on each side of the mean, if the class data is a "normal" curve. So if you're curving to a B, 66% will score between a C and A, 17% will score a C or lower, and 17% will score an A or higher.</p>
<p>The system makes it very manageable to get Bs....while making it ulikely to outright fail if you're putting in the work, but also hard to get As.</p>
<p>The professors make the tests hard, intending practially no one to get a perfect score, so that a bell curve is centered anywhere between a 50-80% (Otherwise, you wind up with a weird half bell curve thing for the results of the exam, which probably makes it really hard to curve things)</p>
<p>it's not necessarily a bad thing....If my tests were uncurved, I'd be getting Cs instead of As. I've never heard of a class that curves scores down. My first bio test they released the raw scores before the stats..>I thought I got a C with a 72%, turned out I scored well above the mean of a 60% and was actually in a B+ to A- range.</p>
<p>hmmm...definitely going to be interesting...</p>
<p>There's nothing wrong with curves. The majority of classes at any respectable college will be curved. It simply dictates that a certain percentage of people can receive a certain grade. This isn't happy-go-lucky land of HS where 60% of the class got A's.</p>
<p>How is grade deflation factored into the curves?</p>
<p>How tough a class is depends on what grade the mean is set to. A class where the mean is set to a C+ will obviously be tougher than a class where the mean is set to a B+. A grade deflated school would have more classes where the mean is set to a low grade.</p>
<p>Does Cornell give Percentages?</p>
<p>seems like relative performance</p>
<p>As SPX explained, percentages carry little meaning in curved classes. a 70% might be good enough for a C in one class and an A- in another. It all depends on how the rest of your peers in the class do.</p>
<p>I don't think that most classes are graded on a curve. Only the science and math courses are, am I right? Everything within humanities is not.</p>
<p>That just got my really scared because Cornell has extremely intelligent people taking classes lol</p>
<p>i thought people said that there wasn't a curve at cornell, that there was actually grade deflation. if anyone can give the real facts that wuld be great for all of us stressed out pre-frosh lol</p>
<p>don't be scared....I came from a tiny public high school in upstate ny that had three AP classes, handed out As, and was anything but competitive.</p>
<p>Yes, it was a bit of a shock the first round of exams....but with some work, I was able to do well.</p>
<p>students here are smart, but only a small portion of them are ridiculous super-geniuses.</p>
<p>so you probably won't be the absolute top of your class...but you won't do poorly if you put the necessary work in. I know a lot of people that have had a rough exam or two, myself included, but as long as you don't let your mistakes discourage you, but use them as indicators of your areas you need to improve...you will do fine.</p>
<p>The key is not to give up, and don't be afraid to seek out help if you need it. There are weekly review sessions, office hours, online lecture notes, practice tests, study groups, tutors, TAs...there is so much help available, but you have to ask for it. If you are in the situation where you need help, don't be afraid to seek it out...</p>
<p>The only people I know that are doing poorly are those who give up, and are too proud to look for help...but that's what it's there for.</p>
<p>Curves have nothing to do w/ grade inflation/deflation. There are curves at just about all colleges. It all has to do with what grade you set the median/mean to.</p>
<p>Harvard: median set to an A- (50% of the students get A's or A-'s)=grade inflation</p>
<p>Cornell: Bio 101-median set to a B- (50% of the students get B-'s or lower)=a ***** of a class</p>
<p>Upper level classes usually have higher median grades because professors realize that the students are actually doing the work. The intro lecture classes as meant to weed unmotivated students out, so that is why the mean is low. From my experience, the median grades gets higher, but it becomes substantially harder to get 1-2 SD above the mean.</p>
<p>Norcalguy, if you're iffy on whether you want to continue as a Biology major, would you suggest taking Intro to bio in the first semester, or trying other classes of interest and perhaps taking biology later on if these lack the required interest?</p>
<p>(I know you're not asking me, but..) bio 101 is a pretty typical class for freshmen to take. Most people I know started out with four classes and PE, and added a fifth class second semester if they wanted to.</p>
<p>I think first semester freshman year is probably going to be one of your lightest semesters as far as course load goes, so if you take the class freshman year, you'd probably have more time to focus on it. Upperclassmen can have a little more trouble with it, because they tend to be busier, at least that's what my RA told us...</p>
<p>Good point, thanks.</p>
<p>Check out:</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grading_curve%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grading_curve</a></p>
<p>Has some of the advantages and disadvantages. Remember grading curves are also like how the AP scores. They make the AP hard to get people to stufy real hard. Then most people who get 3's and 4's really only get about 50%-60% of the questions right (not completly sure about the nembers there). </p>
<p>The whole system is designed to make it so each student works as hard as they can without either:</p>
<p>~hitting a "ceiling" where the students simply know everything in the course or,</p>
<p>~Where the class is hard and there is no compensation if you do not know all of the content.</p>
<p>why don't they just gradethe raw score u get a 90, u get a 90, i don't like curving grades or having them reflect on what the class did, just how i did</p>